


the measure of love isn't loss

by tosca1390



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She loves hard but recovers like a champion. It’s the only way to survive. Kim Kardashian taught her so.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the measure of love isn't loss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LJ2347](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LJ2347/gifts).



> This diverges from the season one finale of The Mindy Project, in that Mindy does not go to Haiti with Casey and they break up. There are no spoilers for season two. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! It was a pleasure to write! Thank you to those fine readers who assisted in guiding this along the way - you know who you are.

*

 

Mindy walks into the office, the small of her back and the crease of her knees slick with sweat even at eight-thirty in the morning, and sets her satchel down on the receptionist’s ledge. 

“Morning,” she trills, her mouth curved into a too-brittle smile. Under the harsh yellow July sun, she feels exposed to the bone, the soft marrow of her mistakes and mess-ups visible for all to see. Her smile is her only defense against the continuous questions: _are you okay? Do you miss him? Do you regret staying?_

“Oh god. This is how it starts,” Morgan bemoans from the nurses’ station. 

She shoots him a glare. “Excuse me?”

Lips twisted in his odd little smile, he waves a hand up and down in her direction. “Flats. A ponytail. No eyeliner. Black skirt. You’ve given up.”

Rolling her eyes, Mindy takes the day’s patient files from Betsy. “Since when is a ponytail a sign of giving up?”

“Do you see Kate Middleton wearing her hair in a ponytail?” he retorts, eyes widening and eyebrows shifting. 

“Ponytails are coming back in,” Betsy pipes up. “All the ladies from my church group say so.”

“Thank you,” Mindy says firmly, holding the files under one arm. “There’s no need to worry about me, Morgan.”

“But it’s my job.”

“Where does it say that in your hiring paperwork?” she retorts, moving away from reception and towards her office. She is the first one in the office, a new trend; Danny and Jeremy are intensely discomfited by her summer work ethic. 

“It didn’t have to be spelled out for me! I know you need me,” he calls as she slips inside her office and shuts the door. 

For a moment, she leans against the cool wood and shuts her eyes with a sigh. The hum of the air conditioner soothes her, cools her too-warm skin. The loose and airy blouse, so lovely and saturated sapphire blue in her closet an hour ago, sticks to her sweat-damp collarbones and elbows. The murmurs of the staff pass through the door and into her ears, mindless to her now. 

She’s fine - she’s _fine_. Not going to Haiti with Casey was the right decision. She stood by it a month ago and she stands by it now. Her mourning period is over, and she’s had all the floor wine and chocolate needed for a satisfactory recovery. If she’s not back to one-hundred percent in the eyes of the world, then that’s their issue. Because she’s _fine_. 

She loves hard but recovers like a champion. It’s the only way to survive. Kim Kardashian taught her so. 

Hard knuckles rap on the door, startling her. She pushes off the wood and sets her bag and the files on the chair opposite her desk, opening the door. 

“God, you really beat me here again?” Danny grumbles, thick arms crossed in front of his chest. He leans against the doorframe, his white button-down stretches across his shoulders with the shift. 

Mindy tilts her head, lips twitching. “It isn’t a competition. Besides, some of us don’t need eight to nine hours of sleep and our Grape Nuts in the morning, Gramps,” she says airily as she moves to sit behind her desk. The city gleams outside her window, heat shimmering in the early morning blueness. How could she ever leave this city she’s made her own, her home?

“I have never had Grape Nuts in my life. Where do you get this stuff?” he mutters, pushing off the door and coming further into the office. He sits in the open chair opposite hers, glancing over at her bag and files draped over the arms of the chair next to him. 

“Wheatina, then.”

“I have Corn Flakes for breakfast, if you must know.”

She laughs, that fragile smile of self-preservation shifting into something more honest and bare as he glowers at her. “That’s almost as bad.”

“Shut up,” he says, voice lacking heat. He runs fingers through his dark hair, gaze fixed on her intently. 

“Is there something on my face?” she asks acerbically. 

“You okay?” he counters. 

“Oh god, Danny,” she mutters. 

“Forget I asked!” He leaps out of his chair, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Still on for lunch?”

“Only if it’s a Cobb salad with extra bacon,” she says, peering up at him. Their daily lunches are new as of a few weeks ago. Half the time she’ll burst in with sushi and a roast beef sandwich, and the other days he’ll find something to eat at one of the restaurants she loves and he hates and order take-out. They eat in her office usually, as his office isn’t appropriately feng shui’d, which she has told him time after time. It’s never a talkative half-hour, but it’s nice. Comforting. 

She’d never thought of Danny as comforting before, but things change. People change. Or, you start seeing them more clearly. 

Sighing, Danny lifts a hand in goodbye and leaves her alone to prepare for her first appointment. The hum of the building and the car horns from outside are her only companions. It feels like her apartment in its empty quiet; she swallows hard and smooths her ponytail under her fingertips, reaching for the files across her desk. 

 

*

 

At two, Danny storms into her office with a clear take out container full of a Cobb salad, extra bacon, a Dr. Pepper, and a slice of cheesecake from the bakery two blocks over. 

Mindy claps and coos. “Oh, Danny – you shouldn’t have,” she exclaims, batting her eyelashes. 

“Shut up,” he says, shutting her office door and placing it in front of her. He has a plastic bag at his side, a bag of salt and vinegar chips peeking out of the opening. The smell of melted cheese, Italian oil, and meat pervades the office. 

“Another grinder?” she drawls. 

“Don’t say it like that,” he says with a grimace. 

“Grinder?” she teases, tilting her head. 

He sits down opposite her and scowls. “It just doesn’t sound right.”

Before this past year, before she and Danny actually started seeing one another as people, as friends, she would have made some sort of snarky comment about his prudishness being the reason his ex-wife left _again_. But Christina’s exit two weeks ago had been incredibly abrupt, and though Danny refused to talk about it in his tough-guy-Italian way (and god, sometimes that was just the most annoying), Mindy knew he took it hard. She doesn’t have the heart to kick him while he’s down. So, she just grins and says grinder five more times before he shoves a chip in her mouth to shut her up. 

She doesn’t mind. Salt and vinegar chips are the _bomb_. 

As he swipes the back of his hand across his mouth, shiny with oil, she goes first for the cheesecake. It’s better when it’s fresh, after all. He tells her of a patient with preeclampsia he’s concerned for, and she fiddles with her plastic fork as she recalls the three phone calls she’s gotten just today from one expectant mother worried that the baby isn’t kicking. Her office is bright with the mid-afternoon sun reflecting off the nearby buildings. 

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asks after a moment.

Halting mid-bite of cheesecake, she blinks at him. “Um – “

“I – we – the office – we have tickets to the Yankees game,” he says in a rush, the tops of his cheeks flushed. 

A mixed sensation of relief and regret sinks into her stomach. “Baseball?” she asks. 

“God, Min. Yes. Baseball.”

“The Yankees?” she furrows her brow. “Oh! Derek Jeter! The hot one!”

Danny’s eyes roll up to the ceiling for a moment, as if he is praying. “He’s actually not playing right now. Injury,” he says crisply. 

“Why would I go to a sporting event if the hot one isn’t even going to be playing?” she pouts. 

“Because we’re all going, and we thought it would be a good idea. Get you out of your apartment. Breathe the fresh air. All that bullshit,” he says gruffly. 

Mindy looks at him carefully, straining for something she is just catching the edges of. “Well –“

“There will be nachos and hot dogs and beer.”

“Sold,” she says with a bright smile. “Always lead with nachos, Danny. That’s how you get the girls.”

“I’ll remember that,” he says dryly, but the smile touching the corners of his mouth is sincere. 

She thinks on it just for a moment, of the stumbles and stutters in their history. The plane ride with her hand wrapped around his strong firm wrist, his insistence on going with her to the rehab center, the relief on his face that night in the lounge when she said she wasn’t going to Haiti with Casey. Just for a moment, she lingers on the shape of his mouth, the dark kindness of his eyes. 

Then he tries to steal a piece of her cheesecake, and it’s _war_. 

 

*

 

Mindy’s apartment is her castle, her fortress; every piece of furniture, smear of paint, every framed print on the wall is of her own mind and her own desires. She loves her apartment, and she won’t stand for anyone who doesn’t as well, especially to her face. Lately, she’s been the only one to cross the threshold. It needs to stay a safe space, and the next guy who spends a lot of time here is going to be worthwhile and deserving of the honor. 

When Danny comes to pick her up for the baseball game that next night, she is just in the middle of tugging on her baseball cap. “Door’s open!” she hollers. Danny doesn’t count. Danny is her work colleague, her friend. Danny isn’t – 

“Do you just leave this unlocked all the time?” he asks as he steps in, brow furrowed. His navy-blue t-shirt clings to his upper arms, his shoulders; she’s distracted from fixing her hair under her hat for just a moment. 

“No, Neighborhood Watchdog, I do not,” she says after an awkward beat, eyes flickering back to her reflection in the mirror. He lingers in the front hall, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. “Do you own shorts?”

“I don’t wear shorts unless I’m running,” he says, glancing at her. 

His mouth falls open. 

“What?” she asks, turning to face him fully. 

“Is that – Min – “ he puts a wide hand to his heart, nearly covering the Yankees logo. “Is that a _Red Sox_ hat?”

She glances in the mirror once more, smiling. Ponytails really work for her, she thinks as she smooths stray flyaways under the cap. “I am from Boston.”

“You can’t wear that hat.”

“It’s the only cap I own. And excuse you, I can do whatever I want,” she retorts, tugging on the hem of her plain emerald-green t-shirt. Casual yet cute, paired with her favorite worn Converse sneakers and jeans. Exactly how attractive successful women in their prime dress for sporting events. 

“You’re going to Yankee Stadium!” he all but shrieks. 

“They’re not playing the Red Sox, right? Does it really matter?” she asks. 

Danny looks as if she’s punched him right in the gut, eyes wide and fingers twitching against his chest. “Um –“

“Come _on_ , I’m not changing and you promised me nachos! Let’s go,” she says, grabbing her keys and wallet and dragging him speechless out the front door. 

“I’ll buy you a Yankees hat at the stadium,” he says as they crowd onto the subway with many other baseball fans. The amount of dirty looks she’s getting is really incredible, and a little flattering. 

“Please. Nachos. And maybe a foam finger. I have priorities, Danny,” she scoffs, ponytail swinging as she shakes her head. 

Pressed tightly side to side, she feels more than hears the little groan in his chest. A shiver runs up her spine, and she spends the train ride staring at a spot over his shoulder and nodding distractedly as he explains the importance of tonight’s game (the Minnesota Twins though? Really? Minnesota has baseball?). He smells like summer sweat and grass and a spicy kind of cologne, right at the crook of his neck. 

It’s very distracting. 

 

*

 

Morgan, Jeremy and Betsy are already there outside the main gate of the stadium, attired in Yankees gear from head to toe. Morgan has some sort of beer helmet on, which security takes from him immediately. 

“I’ve got thirty more where that came from!” Morgan hollers as they drag him further into the stadium. 

“See, now you guys are ready for a game,” Danny says approvingly. 

“Where are my nachos, Grandpa?” Mindy retorts. 

“This seems like it will be absolutely pleasant,” Jeremy says dryly, smiling at Betsy. 

It takes forty minutes, but finally, laden with beers, hot dogs, and nachos, the five of them make it to their seats. They’re in the right field bleachers, third row center. Pretty good seats, Mindy would think. 

“This is nice,” she says as the teams are introduced, sipping her nine-dollar beer. The sun just beginning to set, the heat of the day lessening, a breeze shifting through the stands; she thinks she might like baseball. 

Sitting next to her, Danny turns his head to her. “Yeah? You’re having fun?” he asks. He finally seems to be over the Red Sox hat, though he does look a little green every time he glances at the logo. 

“I am,” she beams. 

“Good,” he says, scuffing his heel against the concrete floor. “I – we – we thought it would be good. For you.”

She pats his knee and shifts her focus back to the field, an odd lump at the base of her throat. She’s fine. And everybody knows she’s fine. Dips and bumps in the road to true love are normal, and Casey just happened to be a Reggie Bush-sized one. But she gets up every morning and goes to her job and is damn good at it; she has her friends, she has her family, she has her apartment and she has alcohol and television. She lives a full and happy life enough for anyone who sees her worth, and she’s never going to forget that again. 

“Why on earth couldn’t you Americans have picked up cricket like the rest of the civilized world?” Jeremy asks from Danny’s other side, pressed and handsome and preening even in a Yankees cap and t-shirt. 

“Because we threw off the yoke of our oppressors, jackass,” Danny mutters. 

“I was on the prison baseball team,” Morgan calls from the end, next to Betsy. 

“What position did you play?” Betsy asks, sipping her diet soda and leaning closer to Jeremy than Morgan. Mindy doesn’t envy being in that sandwich. 

“Catcher. I’d swipe dudes out at the knees when they came into home,” Morgan replies. 

“Dude, that’s rough,” Danny says, exasperation in every word. 

“Play to win, doc. Play. To. Win.”

“Well then,” Jeremy says, bringing his beer to his mouth. “Charming.”

 

*

 

Somehow, Mindy ends up not paying for anything all night. Every time her beer is nearly empty, Danny always has another one ready to press into her hands. She and Betsy share an ice cream sandwich and do the Wave as it comes through the stands. Nachos keep coming, and Mindy is really, really content. Morgan’s weirdness aside, her coworkers are more than that to her; they’re friends and nearly family, and she feels the sense of community solidify between all of them. She likes this; she even might like sports, if it’s always like this. 

In the seventh inning, with the Yankees losing and on her fourth beer, she turns to Danny as he returns from one trip or another to ask about the spitting and chewing, when he shoves a foam finger into her hands. 

“Here. Don’t point it at me,” he says, face relaxed and tan in the dusky light. 

She holds it in her palms, tears stinging the backs of her eyes. It’s kitschy and irritating and abrasive, and he bought it for her. 

“I almost cut my hair,” she blurts out in a rush. 

Blinking, Danny leans in. “Huh?”

“When Casey said I wouldn’t fit in Haiti, when he said it wasn’t me. I was – I was really close to chopping off all my hair. To prove to him it was me, that I would fit,” she says, meeting his dark gaze. 

Danny’s jaw twitches, his mouth thinning. “So. Why didn’t you?” he asks, voice flat. 

Wetting her lips, she looks down at the foam monstrosity in her lap. “Because I shouldn’t have to prove anything to anyone. And I like my hair,” she says at last. “I like a lot of things about myself. I can be frantic and messy and too into popular culture, but I like that. And I was tired of feeling bad about it.”

It is the first time she’s said the words out loud since Casey left, since their break-up. It feels odd, as if she has known this all along about herself, but was only waiting for the right moment. What made the right moment a Yankees game in the Bronx, she has no idea. It’s a weight off her chest, her shoulders; even her tongue is lighter. 

Danny’s hand, tan and lightly furred with dark hair, settles on her jean-clad knee. She looks up, startled. 

“You don’t have to prove anything,” he says, a little rough. “Anyone who makes you feel that way is an asshole.”

“Casey was really nice. He was a good guy,” she protests. 

“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t also an asshole.”

Shrugging, she can’t help but laugh a little at Danny’s face. So serious, so intent on her. Her skin flushes just a bit with the attention, those dark eyes, the strong line of his mouth and jaw. “I’m okay, though.”

“Of course you are,” he says, thumb rubbing small circles on her knee. “You’re better than okay. And – shit, Min – “

“GET YOUR ASS BACK TO BEANTOWN!”

Both Mindy and Danny jerk in shock, staring at the end of their row. 

“Excuse me?” Danny asks, voice lowering. 

A drunk man, mid-fifties and stretching out a blue-and-white-striped Yankees jersey, points at Mindy with a beer in one hand and venom in his gaze. “This is why we’re losing!”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Mindy says, blinking.

“Calm the hell down, man. We’re just not great this year, it happens!” Danny shouts back, getting to his feet. 

“Ah, we come back to a brawl. I do love America,” Jeremy says as he and Betsy both return and sit back down, looking suspiciously red in the face. Mindy wants to ask where the hell they were, because her gossip radar is blaring, but Danny looks like he’s about ready to leap across uncomfortable chairs to defend her Boston honor, and she can’t have that. 

“You’re a sellout! Defending some chick and abandoning your boys!” the drunk man hollers. 

“The _Twins_ are beating us! What do you want me to say, jackass?” Danny snarls, voice like gravel. 

“Oh sit down,” Mindy says, pulling on Danny’s elbow. “Sir, I’m very sorry your team is losing today, but I highly doubt my hat has anything to do with it,” she says calmly to the blustering fan. “Please take your rude scapegoating elsewhere.”

Golf claps break out in the rows directly in front and behind theirs. The man’s friend gets him to sit down, and Mindy leans back in her chair with a grin. “See? Calm, measured responses always do the trick.”

“How far we’ve come in a year,” Jeremy says wryly from Danny’s other side. 

“Jackass,” Danny mutters. 

Laughing, Mindy pats his arm. “You’re a good friend,” she says, hesitating just a moment before kissing his cheek. 

He stills for just a moment, blinking rapidly. Then, his face relaxes and he smiles a little, reaching over to adjust the brim of her cap. “Ponytail’s a good look for you,” he says after a moment, reaching back to tug it lightly. It’s a move of all affection and care; it nestles its way into her heart and stays there, a warm memory for nights in the future. 

The Yankees lose to the Twins one-to-four. But, as a consolation, Mindy hustles everyone back towards downtown and takes them out for drinks on her as a thank you. Danny stays near her side the whole time, his hand sometimes brushing her hip, sometimes tugging on her hair. She flushes with the attention, but doesn’t let herself get carried away. Not yet. 

 

*

 

On Monday morning, when she goes into her office, there’s a brand-new Yankees baseball cap sitting on her desk, waiting for her. A note in Danny’s chicken scrawl sits next to it. 

_If we’re doing this more often, you’re doing it right._

Smile blooming on her face, Mindy picks up the note, and slips it into the pocket of her dress. The cap stays on her desk for now, next to the pictures of her brother and her parents. 

 

*


End file.
